Bring fruit to work; bring fruit to bed !

I had a look at this one two or three times, to assure I read it right. I see the value of bringing fruit to work, but to bed? Let’s look at each piece of fruity advice separately.

Doing good towards others, especially co-workers, is indeed a good way to improve lives. Bringing in munchies to the office is a good deed indeed, both for the receivers and the giver. I suppose fruit is a better option than boxes of Tim-bits or brownies (home-baked), but, I ask you! When you go into the office kitchen and see sugar-fried cakes of death and not an apple, don’t you feel better for it? Besides sweet treats like sugar cookies are grab-and-gobble items, easily transported to your cubicle to eat with relish. Fruit needs to be washed or peeled. A plate of chopped, prepared fruit should have handy bowls and utensils nearby or they won’t be touched.*

Someone works at a convention center. He tells me every year an oh-so-politically-correct group comes in and every time they do so they demand healthy snacks only and lunch entrees of fruit, vegetable sticks, salads – that sort of stuff, and the caterers complain they end up throwing it all out as no one touches it, as the convention-goers go out at lunch to local places for burgers and fries. Grease surpasses greens every time – even free ones.

Bringing fruit to bed? In my life I’ve brought several fruits to bed and believe me this doesn’t work out. Munching apples, peaches etc. makes for some sinister stains on the pillow cases and then you have sticky cores and pits to contend with. Grapes and raisins fare better, but woe onto you if one falls and gets lost in the sheets. Pre-sliced items like apples and pears require forks, which are also not recommended for the bedroom, especially if the mattress is water-based. Besides, no one with the evening munchies wants fruit for Pete’s sake; one wants starchy crunchy things, like nasty chips. These far more delicious items come with their own consequences viz. crumbs in bed. In my life I’ve experienced many crumbs in bed and they are worse than the fruits. Best to bring books to bed instead and leave the comestibles for work.

*At the Mesa office, the kitchen was recently piled high as Fafner’s hoard with holiday cookies, cakes, and other things brought in by folks on diets and/or new years resolutions and nobody is touching them. Yesterday they were thrown out.